Meeting
by jessara40k
Summary: Prequel to Failure and the rest of my 'Handler' fics. Sephiroth meets Cloud for the first time while he's waiting for Zack to meet him for a spar.


Sephiroth knew he was early, but it didn't matter, Zack would arrive for their sparring session soon enough and Sephiroth wanted to get some practice in adjusting his style to such close quarters. They hadn't used this room before, or anything as small as this room, so Sephiroth ran through some exercises, reminding himself that he couldn't be as mobile as he preferred while he was sparring with Zack this time. Zack tended less towards the acrobatics Sephiroth favoured, which would give him a slight edge here, and Sephiroth did wonder if that was why his friend had chosen this room, in a mostly deserted area, but even Zack was going to have trouble sparring in here.

He spun to face the door when he heard a quiet gasp, not the sort of noise Zack would make, lowering his sword when he realised the sound didn't indicate a threat. There was a blond trooper standing in the open doorway - and had Sephiroth been careless enough to leave it open? He must have, Sephiroth refused to believe that this almost fragile looking teen had been able to open the door without alerting him to his audience...he was finding it hard enough to believe that he hadn't noticed his presence until he announced it with that gasp.

"Who are you?" He knew he sounded cold but he didn't care that he was scaring the boy, as long as he got his answers.

"Private St-trife sir." He examined the trooper again, noting the blunted bastard sword he was carrying, and trying to understand why that seemed out of place.

"How long were you watching me?" Finding out just how badly he'd let his awareness slip took priority over settling that nagging sense of something being wrong with Strife's uniform.

"I...I don't know. A few minutes?" Strife sounded uncertain, and Sephiroth concluded that he must be over-estimating, but he decided to drop that line of questioning, since he wasn't going to get a better answer. He put Masamune away with a frown as he considered what to say next. _Zack_ would know what to say, but Sephiroth had resigned himself a long time ago to the knowledge that he'd never be as good with people as his friend was.

"What exactly are you doing here?" He was sure that this room wasn't somewhere troopers would normally come, because if it was Zack wouldn't have suggested they spar here.

"I come here to train whenever I've got free time sir. I didn't realise you'd be using this room now." Strife sounded more dedicated to improving himself than most troopers Sephiroth had heard of...unless he was lying of course.

"Show me then." Sephiroth stepped back, away from the door, and held his hand out to the side in invitation. The trooper moved into the room slowly, showing a sense of caution Sephiroth found admirable - he hadn't _precisely_ given Strife an order, it wouldn't be appropriate off-duty.

"Sir?"

"I want to see you run through one of the exercises you were going to do." He shut the door, ignoring the way Strife froze for a moment, and moved back against the wall, where he could watch how Strife performed as well as giving him enough room to work.

"Ah...yes sir." There was something odd in Strife's voice, but Sephiroth couldn't tell what emotion it was betraying...Zack would be able to, or if it was Zack he'd probably recognise it, but not with this stranger. Strife was moving awkwardly as he went through one of the simpler solo attack patterns. Part of it Sephiroth put down to the fact that he was just too small to wield a bastard sword, but there were some very basic errors in how he stood and Sephiroth couldn't understand how his teacher had allowed him to develop such bad habits.

"Enough." The trooper stopped moving at once, turning to watch Sephiroth, almost standing to attention.

"Sir?" He'd seen _that_ expression before, often enough to recognise it, on SOLDIERs who'd screwed up, and knew that they had but weren't sure how.

"Who is supposed to be teaching you to use a sword Strife?" Whoever it was Sephiroth was determined to have them dismissed. The army could do without incompetents instilling bad habits into its swordsmen, bad habits that they'd have to break for any troopers who managed to make it to SOLDIER after receiving such substandard teaching. Which would be a lot more difficult than starting from scratch the way they had to with some of the SOLDIERs who came up through something other than the sword corps.

"N-no-one sir. I...I'm in the riffle corps." That was what had seemed out of place earlier then. "I...this is what I picked up from watching people training." And that put his performance into an entirely different light. "I'm sorry, I know I'm not supposed to-"

"What gave you that idea?" If Strife was somehow under the impression he'd been doing something wrong then that would explain why he was so nervous, and it was a better reason than the...near worship most of the unenhanced, and even some of his SOLDIERs exhibited around Sephiroth. "There are no regulations dictating what you should do when off duty. But you are making some mistakes that a good teacher would have corrected." Or even a mediocre teacher, as long as it was a _competent_ teacher. He had no real reason to help Strife, but...the boy's determination to improve himself was impressive, and he had nothing better to do while he waited for Zack to arrive, so the only real question was whether he helped Strife with that particular exercise, or gave him a tool to apply to all his exercises. "Run through that exercise again, at one quarter of the speed."

"Yes sir." But Strife stumbled just a few moves into the exercise, picking himself up to start again.

"Don't. If you can't run through an exercise at one quarter speed then you're doing it wrong." Sephiroth hesitated, then decided to ask anyway. "The sword doesn't help, why aren't you using something smaller?"

"Because I don't have anything smaller sir." Sephiroth frowned at that, before he realised that Strife must own the blunted sword...which made more sense, he was fairly sure the trooper had some growing to do, even if he wasn't sure why he thought that.

"I see." He knew that he was a terrible teacher, especially for total novices like Strife, but he talked the trooper through the _right_ way to do that exercise, despite his oversized sword.

"Try it again. Full speed first, then again at quarter speed."

"Yes sir." Strife was doing it right this time, and from the smile on his face he could feel the difference.

"Sorry I'm late Seph, I got caught up - hey, Cloud, what are you doing here?" Strife stumbled again, managing to recover and he restarted the exercise at quarter speed after a glance at Sephiroth, without speaking to Zack or needing instructions to ignore him.

"Did you plan this Zack?" Zack was always saying Sephiroth needed to 'socialise more' but he hadn't expected his friend to lay a trap and try to _trick_ him into dealing with people...not when he refused to use the easier methods to compel Sephiroth.

"Plan what?" Zack looked confused, and there was a hint of...surprise on his face when he glanced at Strife running through the exercise at quarter speed. "I suggested this room to spar in 'cause most people don't know about it, so I figured we wouldn't have any gawkers. The places we've been sparring before are getting a bit too well known, and everyone knows that you don't like sparring somewhere as small as this. I didn't even know the kid was trying to learn how to use a sword."

"I didn't want anyone to know sir. That's why I come here to train, most people don't realise it's suitable for that." At least Strife had finished the exercise before he spoke, correctly this time, but...Zack looked unhappy for some reason.

"You didn't trust me enough to ask for help? I'd have kept it quiet if you'd asked." That made sense of Zack's displeasure - he obviously considered Strife a friend, and was upset that the boy didn't feel the same way about him.

"I...I didn't want to ask. I know you've got more important things to do than to help me." Strife shrugged, even Sephiroth could see how uncomfortable he was. "And you've already helped me a lot. I couldn't ask you for more, it would be ungrateful."

"You're not asking, I'm offering." Sephiroth could read the look Zack shot at him, asking for some help persuading Strife, and he was impressive enough to deserve the help Zack could give him.

"Strife, if you keep on trying to learn the way you are now all you'll do is give yourself bad habits. I assume that you intend to try for SOLDIER?" Most troopers harboured dreams of passing the SOLDIER Entrance Exams from what he'd seen.

"Yes sir. I didn't realise it was that obvious." Strife looked almost ashamed of his ambition, and Zack seemed unhappy to see it; Sephiroth could ask why later.

"It will count against you if you've picked up too many bad habits by trying to learn without a teacher, a lot more than total ignorance of how to use a sword would count against you." Because it was a lot harder to break bad habits than to teach the _right_ technique from the start, enough so that bad habits usually meant assigning a totally different type of weapon and starting from scratch with that instead. "Do you really think what I've shown you today is enough to help you avoid all the problems you've been having?"

"No sir. I..._thank you_ Zack, I'd love it if you'd teach me how to use this properly."

"You're welcome kid. Seph, would you mind letting him watch us spar?"

"This once, no. Not if he remains silent." Sephiroth drew Masamune and waited for Zack to attack him once Strife was out of the way.


End file.
